


Summer Suffering

by TheWitchBoy



Series: TimKon: Young Justice Universe [1]
Category: Teen Titans - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant - Young Justice, Conner is Smart and Perceptive, Conner's Tee Shirt, Dick is a Good Brother, Disney Movies, Fluff, Gen, Kon is lowkey "The Mom Friend", M/M, Mentions of Prescription Medications, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Mild Language, Movie Night, Peripheral Bluepulse, Pre-Slash, Tim Deserves to be Happy, Tim has Short Hair (Sadly), Tim in Booty Shorts, Tim is a mess, Trouble breathing, awkward clone, heat exhaustion, mentions of anxiety and depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 23:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11195478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWitchBoy/pseuds/TheWitchBoy
Summary: Tim has a lot of secrets. It happens, especially when you're a Bat. One of them, though, is how quickly he begins to suffer from heat exhaustion.Conner notices Robin's shortness of breath on return from a successful mission and takes it upon himself to make sure Tim gets some much-needed downtime.





	Summer Suffering

**Author's Note:**

> This started as projection. Long story short, hot/muggy weather makes it hard for me to breathe (and I dehydrate really easily) and a heat wave hit my area awhile ago. In the midst of anxiety-inducing shortness of breath, I opened a word document and spat out the first 2,000 words of this.
> 
> I'm a skinny ass boy with a metabolism that is just shy of speedster's, which is what I usually blame for the dehydration half of my summer issues. Tim, being a skinny ass boy himself, was the easiest Bat to project on. (Other things that make Timmy relateable: bad at self-care, overindulges in caffeine, eats junk all the time, and sets unrealistically high goals for themself.)
> 
> Anyway: enjoy.
> 
> [Edit 6.14.2017 - I read over this and found some pretty glaring mistakes. These have been fixed, which hopefully makes for a better/easier read. Cheers!]

Tim was hiding something.

He’d been hiding it for ages, by then, and it didn’t seem like a big deal, anymore. Even if, when adrenaline rode low, everything got harder. Including thinking. Especially thinking.

A fog settled over Tim. No, not the depression kind. Well, “yes, the depression kind,” but that was a separate and blissfully medicated issue that Tim didn’t have to worry about as much, anymore. And not the current fog or issue.

Thank god that Bruce was attentive enough to notice the signs of depression. But then again, poor Dick. Tim couldn’t speak for Jason, but Dick was a big part of why Bruce recognized signs of depression, by the time Tim joined the family. Rather, Bruce learned to recognize the signs after – with Dick – missing the signs until almost too late.

They didn’t talk about the “almost too late,” much. Or at all.

Ahem, the topic.

A fog settled over Tim, separate from the kind that sometimes fell over him in tandem with his bouts and battles with depression. The fog was probably due to trouble breathing. And the trouble breathing? Tim traced that to hot weather. The muggier that the hot weather got, the harder it was to breath.

When adrenaline ran high, Tim barely noticed the trouble breathing, just as he barely noticed injuries and fatigue, pain and stress. All the little things. It was a little thing.

So little.

Tim just had a hard time regulating his body temperature in heat or cold. Cold was a matter of piling on the layers. Easy. But heat? It came with struggles that the Third Boy Wonder didn’t think were entirely normal. He dehydrated so easily, heat got to him so fast, and breathing… was difficult.

He tried not to show it at the Manor or Mountain. Tee shirts and jeans were a staple, much as shorts and a tank top might help him compensate for being so… stringy, he supposed. His build was a lot slimmer than the previous Robins, and maybe he was hiding it, a bit? It seemed like he was probably trying to avoid showing his bony shoulders or knobby knees (were they actually knobby? When it came to body image, Tim’s thoughts tended to be along slightly dysmorphic lines).

God, what was the line of thought? Erratic thought patterns really didn’t help Tim’s current predicament.

Tim cleared his throat, as quietly as he could, and rolled his neck. Quiet, but satisfying, pops and cracks heralded the movement. He made his stance a bit wider, as he sat in the BioShip. M’Gann was ahead. Short hair. (Dick looked at her funny, sometimes, eyeing her hair and outfit choice.) Conner was to the… left or right. Left? Left. Conner was at Tim’s left, looking the same as always. Bart and Jaime were talking, to what had to be the right if Conner was to the left.

The mission was a success. But it had been brutally hot. Brutally muggy. And Rhode Island was promising a heat wave that wouldn’t make it better. Tim started breathing through his mouth a bit, labored and annoyingly similar to the asthma he thought he’d left in his early childhood.

He wondered if his inhaler would help.

He wondered where he hid his inhaler. And if Bruce knew he used to have asthma.

He wondered if losing the cape would make it a bit easier. Or the gloves. The boots. All three? He leaned back in his sat. The widened stance helped. A little. But it would only help until the seat under him warmed up in the new position.

A drink would be nice. So nice.

He stopped paying attention, zoning out a little, and his breathing returned to his nose. It sounded almost like a wheeze, to him, echoing through his jaw.

He zoned back in and saw Conner looking at him with a frown. He straightened his back – which helped a bit, anyhow – and rearranged himself to look more professional and in his element. The mask kind of itched. Maybe he’d shower back at the Mountain. That would probably help. A lot. A cold shower to run over his back and ribs and make everything feel looser and more breathable.

If he could just make it to the showers at Mount Justice without first having to lie down and catch his breath. His breath was becoming progressively more difficult, amplified by the stress of holding up a front under the careful gaze of the objectively six-year-old clone male. A six-year-old clone male who could probably hear the anxiety in Tim’s heartbeat, and the rattle in his breathing.

Tim pursed his lips.

Conner turned away.

Tim was almost relieved. He was ready to praise, though, when Conner turned back and offered Tim a bottle of water. He’d already drank all his.

M’Gann glanced over at Conner’s interaction with Tim.

Robin.

Tim forced himself into the hero mindset. Forced himself into… some semblance of lucidity.

The A/C and showers were so close. He was almost home free.

“Robin?” he startled and looked over at M’Gann’s concern.

He raised an eyebrow, letting the mask do his work instead of his words. He was afraid they’d be raspy, anyway. He opened Conner’s gift and drank as deeply as he dared, without giving anything away.

“Are you okay?”

He almost spat the water back out.

Conner to the rescue, again, though. “He’s fine. He ran out of water and, you know. Legacy to live up to. Prepared for everything,” it was gruff and so, so kind. An excuse.

He pursed his lips, though, and let assumptions pass through the group, which was only just noticing the conversation, in the first place. Rather, Jaime was finally disentangled from Bart’s longwinded conversation that spanned a hundred rabbit trails’ worth of subjects and Bart had followed the new direction of Jaime’s attention – which was Tim.

M’Gann didn’t look in agreement. She could probably feel the building anxiety rolling off Tim.

Did he even remember his anxiety medication? Or his depression medication? Or his supplements? Damn, he couldn’t remember. And wouldn’t it be just his luck to have forgotten them all (again) when faced with the kind of muggy heat that worried him, the longer he struggled to breathe in it? Yeah, it would.

Conner bid the BioShip to let him stand, buckles withdrawing from the x-shape over his chest and into the chair. He walked over to Tim and leaned against his chair, instead, eyebrow raised until M’Gann turned her attention elsewhere. Then his eyes were on Tim, searching. “Are you?” he asked.

Tim just nodded. Yes. Sure. Don’t pay me any attention.

Conner looked amused. He was polite enough not to say anything, but that look definitely fell under the “amused” categorization.

Tim had spoken out loud, then. He flushed. He ducked his head a bit, turning mask-hidden eyes to the floor of the BioShip.

“We’re home,” M’Gann said. Never mind that it was home to only two of the five BioShip occupants. She sounded as relieved as the announcement made Tim feel. Shower, A/C, hydration (the bottle was already empty in his hands, which hadn’t escaped Conner’s notice), and some time alone in his room to vegetate and catch his breath. And do some self-care.

Had he taken those meds?

God, he was a mess.

The hangar doors were already opening for the BioShip to enter the Mountain through, and M’Gann was guiding the ship to a soft landing. Everyone was quick to leave. Except Bart, maybe, who moved at a quick-for-Jaime pace, but a slow-for-Bart one. Jaime and Bart were always together. It was nice, if a bit annoying.

Tim didn’t have that kind of relationship with anyone on the Team.

Yet?

He took a deep breath as he stood to go, as well, ready for the A/C. Conner, however, stood just barely in his way. There was an uncomfortably long quiet while Conner and Tim looked at each other. Superboy and Robin. In a way, it was a copy facing another copy.

“You okay?” Conner asked.

“I said I was,” Tim raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, well. You lied,” Conner said. He had that flat tone, as per usual, but mirrored Tim’s raised eyebrow. So, apparently, one could lie to a Batman, but not a Superboy.

“I didn’t lie,” Tim said, putting all his offense into his voice, and in front of his panic and insecurity.

Conner tapped his chest, though, emphatically. “Then what’s this?” he asked. The air conditioner would be helping, if the hangar were air conditioned. So, here Tim stood, trying to lie to super hearing, while his breath hitched, his skin itched, and sweat coated every inch between his uniform and his skin. God, he wanted his civvies. And a shower. And some ice. And a lie-down, somewhere air conditioned.

Conner sighed at the apparent lack of answer, then put a hand on Tim’s shoulder to steer him out of the BioShip. “Come on,” he said.

Tim followed Conner without much complaint, still working on a response.

He breathed a sigh of relief when they entered the body of the mountain, the wave of cool, dry air immediately relieving the sense of pressure on his lungs. For the most part. There was still the lingering humidity that seemed to cling to him, and the anxiety that didn’t exactly make breathing easier. Ever.

Conner definitely noticed. But he didn’t say anything. Small mercies.

Conner guided him right to the kitchen, ignoring the way Jaime glanced over – ever cognizant of the things around him, when the scarab wasn’t talking to him (creepy ass bug) – and plopping Tim on a stool. Physically lifting him and putting him on the stool, that is. Physically plopping Tim onto a stool. Himself.

Tim wasn’t sure how he felt about the manhandling.

But he sure felt forgiving when the glass of diluted juice was handed to him. He heard the ice cubes before he saw them, and he had downed the glass before really processing that Conner had interrupted his self-care plans to make sure he was okay and cared for. Care interrupted with care.

“Um. Thanks,” Tim said.

“Good job on the last mission,” Dick – Nightwing. Nightwing! – was saying. He was slapping shoulders and patting backs, the whole leader schtick, that he hated as much as Tim hated decaff coffee. Nightwing paused at the kitchen, his congratulation mingled with a raised eyebrow and amused upward tweak of the corner of his mouth. “Thanks for birdsitting, Conner,” he tacked on.

Tim straightened, offended, but Conner was already refilling his glass and Tim was drinking it instead of retorting his lack of need for a babysitter. He didn’t need one!

He paused, glass only half drank. Somehow, Conner had sent Dick – Nightwing, rather – off with a look and a nod. When Conner noticed the slowing of Tim’s liquid intake, he steered Tim off the stool and toward the hall where all their rooms were. There were lots of cobwebby, empty rooms, still. But it seemed like more were being cleaned out and readied for guests or team members every day. It gave the Mountain an air of a house for a growing family.

Tim frowned at Conner. Which consisted largely of frowning _up_ over his shoulder.

“Feeling better?” Conner asked.

Tim rolled his eyes behind his mask and hunched his shoulders. Instead of answering, he took another sip of the apple juice, appreciating the sight of the melting ice cubes, briefly. A moment of “appreciating” the ice cubes lead Tim to startle, briefly, because they were cube-cubes. Square. Angular. From the white plastic tray in the back of the freezer.

Background, story time, whatever: Tim hated the oblong, rounded ice cubes from the fridge door. He also hated the water from the fridge filter, the sound the ice crusher made, and what have you. These ice cubes were from _his_ tray. His hidden tray. The one he filled from bottled water (because Gotham taught him not to use tap, ever) or the filter in his room.

Tim glowered at the glass in sudden suspicion (paranoia – did he take his anxiety m… wait, he already asked himself that). He turned the glower up to Conner, and was a little startled to actually meet Conner’s eyes this time. He glanced away and then back, too sharply for the motion to be casual, Conner’s gaze didn’t stray, though.

“Well, your breathing is evening out,” Conner said. It was the same dry tone as always, but dry didn’t mean uncaring, Tim supposed. Conner was just… a very dry, sarcastic individual, when it came down to it. He probably even had a sense of humour, even if Nightwing swore up and down that the clone couldn’t even fake humour to save his life.

Tim glanced away, then realized that Conner had stopped him in front of his own door.

“Civvies,” he suggested.

Tim pursed his lips. As much as he was dying to put on civvies, he wasn’t entirely sure he had any in the Mountain. No, strike that. He wasn’t sure he had anything for hot weather. He definitely had some hoodies (that may or may not have belonged to Dick once, back in Dick’s Robin days) and pairs of jeans.

Something must have shown on his face, because Conner turned and disappeared for about thirty seconds. All the while, Tim just stood in front of his door, wondering where these interactions were going.

They were going toward a tee shirt and pair of boxer shorts.

“They’re probably too big,” Conner said, almost awkwardly. He’d been socialized enough to know that he’d strayed a bit out of normal bounds for interpersonal team relationships, but he still set the folded clothing in Tim’s free hand, then turned Tim toward the bathroom, instead of Tim’s private room. “But they’re clean, and you won’t look like Robin 1.0 when you dress.”

Okay, they were definitely hand-me-downs from Dick, the may-or-may-not-have civvies Tim had at the Mountain. The green sweatshirt, alone, was in enough candid Team pictures that Tim knew people recognized it. And the sunglasses? Well. Tim didn’t even like them, but had so far been too lazy to bring a different pair of blackout shades to the Mountain, to wear instead. That was Tim in a nutshell, probably: too lazy to be bothered with personalizing his own wardrobe.

Then again, “Tim in a nutshell” was also “copious amounts of caffeine-fueled all-nighters.”

“Uh, thanks,” Tim offered.

“It worries me when your breathing gets like that,” Conner shrugged.

Tim startled again, this time spilling some apple juice. He was pretty sure he’d kept it from Batman. The almost asthma-attack breathing issues that muggy weather brought on. And it didn’t sound very “isolated occurrence,” the way Conner described the arrhythmic breathing (wheezing).

“Uh,” Tim said, eloquent as a pickle. A butter pickle (the worst pickle in existence).

“Every summer, every humid hot-weather mission,” Conner ploughed on, clearly uncomfortable, now. He shifted his weight to his left leg and didn’t seem to have a place for his hands. “I kept waiting for someone else to mention it. Fix it?”

“I’m going to… go,” Tim said.

He speed-walked off, clinging the boxer shorts and tee shirt to his chest and holding the apple juice a little in front of him.

\--

Was this weird? This was weird.

Tim stood in the bathroom, staring at his reflection in the steamed over mirror. He leaned forward to wipe the steam away for the third or fourth time. He wasn’t really counting.

As per usual, Tim looked fricking tired. This was why his morning routine involved concealer and foundation. Those under-eye circles didn’t hide themselves. At the Mountain, he settled with mask or sunglasses, though. No one could see the circles under the sunglasses. But, damn, the bags under his eyes had bags, sometimes.

That wasn’t what was weird, of course. That was one hundred percent normal.

The “weird” was the Superman insignia emblazoned across the front of the black tee shirt Conner had lent him. And the bright red (what?) boxer shorts. Bright. Flipping. Red. Tim had never seen so much of his pale skin at once while posing as Robin. Tim had also never looked so small, as himself or Robin. He was positively drowning in Conner’s tee shirt, and the boxer shorts… well… Tim didn’t think they were working out great. But he’d have to get to his room to change them, or else put on part of his Robin suit, again.

On one hand, his Robin suit was a sweaty, gross mess. On the other hand, he didn’t want to leave the bathroom wearing Conner’s clothing. They weren’t even that close! They hardly knew each other!

On the other-other hand, he’d taken off his mask (blissfully) and forgotten his sunglasses.

Tim leaned his forehead against the mirror with a halfhearted growl of discontent. Maybe he’d just call Di – Nightwing – and ask for an assist. He could stand the brotherly teasing that would result. Probably. What he couldn’t stand was the idea of looking so tiny, swimming around in a tee shirt that stretched across Conner’s broad shoulders and chest and accentuated his muscled physique.

A knock on the door startled Tim.

Tim glanced away from the mirror and gave the door a doubtful glance.

The bathroom was still steamed up and part of Tim wanted to forget all the hands and lie down on the cold tiles until his lungs cleared out. Again. The breathing was labored (also again) and his lungs felt rubbery or something. It wasn’t pleasant, but he couldn’t leave without making a decision of some sort.

“Robin?”

Tim startled again, but why was he surprised? Of course it was Conner.

“Yeah?” he went to open the door before remembering his mask, or lack thereof, and the forgotten sunglasses. He leaned against the door, instead. It was cold and seeped through the black tee shirt comfortingly, making it moderately easier to breathe through the steam that the shower had gifted the bathroom with.

“I’ve been around for two other Robins, and I guess I know Nightwing pretty well?” Conner started, “I mean, I knew him as the original Rob, and I know him now? But I know about the Secret ID thing.” A brief bout of anxiety flared in Tim, then flatlined as he realized Conner couldn’t possibly mean… “I mean, I know the Secret ID thing is really important to Batman’s protégés. And you probably don’t want to gum the mask to your face again.”

Gum?

“Well, I have some sunglasses here, for you, if you want?” Conner sounded young and awkward there. And disconcertingly thoughtful. If Tim hadn’t been around to see the way Conner sometimes looked at M’Gann, he might have offhandedly wondered if Conner’s attentiveness was a sign of something else.

But he had seen the gazes occasionally levelled at M’Gann.

This was just Conner being the awkwardly attentive, caring person that not enough of the Team credited him with being.

Tim sighed and, back still to the door, he unlocked it and opened it a crack, just enough for Conner to offer the sunglasses. Tim snorted when he saw the red reflective surface of the round lenses and the black metal frames. It looked like a 90s gag gift, kind of. Or a 70s nostalgic gift. Something like that.

He loved them. 90s reject was definitely Tim’s favourite clothing aesthetic, whether or not he wore it around all the time or not.

“Thanks, Conner,” Tim said, accepting the glasses.

“Oh, uh,” Conner withdrew his hand and drew the door carefully shut, again. “I don’t think you’ve ever called me by my name,” he said through the door.

Tim put the sunglasses on, smiling at the foggy refection in the mirror once, and gathered up his clothes. He opened the bathroom door without preamble, then put his hand on his waist to hold up the ridiculous red shorts, which suddenly matched the ridiculous lenses of the ridiculous sunglasses.

Conner looked Tim over, amused. “Hold on,” he said, disappearing again.

A moment late, Tim realized that Conner had zipped off with his dirties, mask and all. Yeah, okay. That was… weird. Tim shuffled over a bit, looking up and down the hall and holding up the boxer shorts with both hands, now. He felt less ridiculous in front of _the_ Superboy than he did just standing around in the ridiculous getup.

Also: what? Since when was Superboy giving the Flash family a run (literally) for their money?

Conner was back before Tim could flee, though, and Tim was back to breathing easy, now that he was out of the steamed-over bathroom. Conner held out a different pair of shorts to Tim. “If you don’t ask, I won’t comment,” he said.

The were green exercise shorts in what was probably a girl cut. Tim made a face over them, at Conner. “These…”

“Yeah,” Conner said.

They both stood looking at the shorts.

Tim slipped back into the bathroom with a suffering sigh and a mental note to bring his own summer-appropriate civvies next time he went from the Manor to the Mountain. Especially if Conner wasn’t going to be letting him get away with half-assed self-care.

The green shorts were definitely a holdover from when Artemis Crock was spending a lot of time at the Mountain. And Tim didn’t know how he felt about Conner’s decision that Artemis’ old shorts would fit better than anything that anyone else could lend. Even if he had been right and they fit almost perfectly.

Bart probably had things he’d fit in, right? They couldn’t be that different in size.

But Tim stepped out of the bathroom again, face contorted in displeasure. The worst part was that the shirt was so long it almost covered the bottom of the shorts. It made him look inconceivably tinier. He still said “Thanks,” though. Before he could think of all the ways in which he could come to regret it, he also tacked on, “I feel much better, now.”

“Good,” Conner said.

Silence stretched between them. Conner put a hand in his front jeans pocket and took the boxer shorts in his other hand. He almost looked like he was admiring the lay of his shirt across Tim’s shoulders. Or measuring just how much smaller Tim’s shoulders were than his own. The latter seemed more likely, so it was the thought Tim let himself be disgruntled at.

The silence didn’t stretch into discomfort, but Conner did manage to lead them back toward the living quarters’ hall.

“So,” Conner said. His lack of thorough socializing poked through a bit with the way Conner rolled the word around on his tongue, looking for an appropriate topic of conversation. Small talk. “Do you… want to watch a movie or something?”

Tim took a momentary break from trying to tug the hem of the shorts lower to look up at Conner. Conner cleared his throat a bit awkwardly and reached out to push the sunglasses up Tim’s nose a bit, which was when Tim realized he’d looked at Conner over the rim of the glasses.

“Not that I recognize who you are, but I don’t think Bats would be very happy about you skirting around the Secret ID rules Nightwing lived so strictly by,” Conner said, shrugging. “So. Movie?”

Tim pursed his lips. “Sure,” he said. “But, to be clear, I know you’re still concerned and trying to keep an eye on me. And, to be even clearer, I’m fine and don’t need a babysitter, no matter what Nightwing says. I’m capable of keeping myself in check and… and…”

“Traught?”

Tim puffed out his cheeks a little. The butchered English was something he hadn’t quite learned to live with. And didn’t want to. “Yeah,” he said, anyway. There was something about the little quirk, only on one side of Conner’s mouth, that made him want to agree. The crooked smile was endearing.

Granted, Tim was horrible at keeping a good bedtime, may have forgotten several necessary medications (and less necessary but equally useful supplements), lived mostly off of caffeine, and invested a lot of time in a lot of projects which lent themselves to a lot of overnights. Traught may have been pushing it, butchered English or no. But Tim was definitely not going to cop to a need for a babysitter.

“I’m working through a bunch of Classic Disney things,” Conner said. An upgrade from the stories of Conner sitting in front of the rec room TV, channel set to static, for hours on end. Conner looked a bit self-conscious, though, and how messed up was it that he was socialized enough to be embarrassed about watching Disney, but not socialized enough to pick up on the intricacies of social norms. Then again, Tim wasn’t always adept at picking up social cues, either.

“Uh, that’s nice,” Tim managed, after zoning out a little.

“We could watch one of those?” Conner suggested.

“Disney? Sure. Um, I’m not much of a Disney kid, or wasn’t,” Tim said. He was too busy overachieving and vying for his parents’ approval. “So I don’t think I’ve even seen a bunch of that… stuff.” It sounded so lame. Tim had worked so hard to cultivate his Robin persona, and it seemed as though it were crumbling before his very eyes, and all it was faced with was possibly sitting down to watch a Disney movie. With one of the original Team members. Who he really didn’t know very well. Yeah. That was all.

Conner nodded slowly. His feet slowed down, too, and he looked over Tim, again.

Tim raised what would be a rebellious eyebrow. If the glasses allowed for his eyebrows to be seen. Conner shrugged in answer, whether or not he could see the eyebrow being raised. “What?” Tim asked.

“Uh, this is my room. We could watch in there, or the rec room. It just doesn’t look like you’re very comfortable, so I just…” he motioned to his bedroom door.

And he noticed the discomfort Tim was feeling.

Not that Tim was hiding it.

But he noticed. And that was just… kind of sweet. Tim rubbed the back of his neck. “Your room’s fine. If you don’t mind? I know it’s like… yours. Yours-yours. You used to live here, right?”

“Still do, when school’s not in and Ma and Pa don’t need a few sets of hands to help on the farm,” Conner nodded, a bit awkwardly. “But it’s… nothing special, really. I don’t think I had enough personality, in those first few years, to really do anything to make the room personal. I just had anger and a working knowledge of the things around me, but no practical application.”

That was definitely more than Conner usually said, at once.

“And now?” Tim asked.

“Well, now? If I want a private space, all to myself, I probably wouldn’t offer in the first place,” Conner snorted. “Besides, I have a room with the Kents – Clark’s old room.” The way he said “Clark” was the same way Dick said “Bruce.” It sounded like “Dad,” even though it was their first name.

Tim said “Bruce” the way someone might say “Mr. Wayne,” usually.

Was that depressing? That was a bit depressing, yeah.

“Uh,” Tim wasn’t sure if they were supposed to know he knew Clark’s identity as Superman. But, then… well. Batman, right? Batman and sons. Literally, at that point. “That’s really cool. I actually heard a bit from Di – shit, uh. Nightwing said something or other about that, the first time you were up in Kansas,” Tim waved his hands a bit, feeling useless and a bit horrified that he’d almost broken the cardinal rule. What was he? A rookie? “They took you a few months before school started, right?”

“Yeah,” Conner glanced away.

M’Gann still went to the local school. A community college, by then, was it? Conner, whatever the case, got a second chance at high school. The Kents had decided (Ma, Pa, and Clark) that Conner was growing up too fast, which stunted mental and social growth. They gave him another shot at high school, which Conner had hated at first, and another shot at a peer group that his physical maturation most closely matched.

The first thing he’d heard, when he’d met with the guidance counselor, was how much he looked like Clark. Or so the story went.

Tim nodded awkwardly.

“Uh. Hunchback?” he said.

“Sorry, what?” Conner glanced back at him.

“The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I never did much Disney – I said that already, sorry – but I really liked that one. Maybe we could…?” he shrugged. He felt a little like he’d either tripped over his tongue, or stuck his foot in his mouth. One or the other. But Conner just looked a bit surprised at the subject change, not confused or upset.

“Yeah, let’s watch that one,” Conner said, de-tensing his muscles with an exhale.

Tim, then, wasn’t the only one feeling stressed.

“I haven’t seen it, yet,” Conner offered, opening his bedroom door by ticking in what looked suspiciously like Clark’s birthday into the number-coded lock panel. Not that it was any of Tim’s business. “Uh. Popcorn? Soda?” Conner tilted his head a bit. It was like the mission had made him stiff and humourless – a picture of the cloneboy as he was when he first got out of CADMUS, as Nightwing described once or twice – and the more time he spent at the Mountain, the more personality and sense of self he gained.

As long as La’gann wasn’t around.

To be fair, Tim didn’t much like La’gann, either, though. He could understand the negative reactions Conner occasionally had to La’gann’s presence.

“Pizza?” Tim blurted. He didn’t remember being hungry, but once he said it, yeah, he was starving.

Conner grinned. Right choice, then. Point to Tim.

\--

Tim fell asleep almost before Clopin had finished singing _The Bells of Notre Dame_ , in the very beginning to the movie. In the absence of struggles to breathe, anxiety, adrenaline, and whatever caffeine he’d usually put into his system after… anything, he was just tired. Bone tired.

Conner noticed Tim entering into the first, still mostly conscious stage of sleep (super hearing and all) and did nothing to stop the second stage, third, et al and into REM. He went as far as to play pillow, and move a pillow into his lap for Tim to lay on when Tim couldn’t balance on his shoulder anymore.

At the end of the movie, Conner queued up one of the Netflix-recommended movies that popped up on his laptop, during the credits. He watched that, eventually falling asleep, himself.

Tim’s head rested on Conner’s stomach and Conner’s head rested back against the mattress. The pillow he’d had on his lap for Tim’s head had migrated to the side, next to the laptop. Tim was on his side, hand covering most of his face and nose and mouth puffing sleepy breaths of air against the edge of Conner’s rib cage. He was curled up, almost fetal, with his feet almost tucked up under him. Conner was just stretched out on his back, taking up as much of the queen bed as subconsciously feasible. One arm was thrown up, above where his head rested and among the other pillows at the bed’s headboard, and his other arm brought down at his side so that his fingers could just barely nestle in Tim’s hair, no longer severely spiked and styled, thanks to his long shower.

That was how Dick found them, hours later when he had popped in – as a very last resort – to find and head Gotham-ward with Tim. He stood in the doorway, hands propped without judgement on his hips and head tilted curiously to the side. Tim wasn’t known for letting his guard down, but there he was, asleep with borrowed sunglasses so far askew that Dick really should push them back into place, just in case.

But that might wake Tim.

Dick closed the door on his way out, under no misapprehension that Conner would have heard the opening of the door and then the closing. Bats were near silent, yes, but there was only so much you could do to remain undetected by a Super.

Barbara, ehem, Batgirl tapped Dick on the shoulder. He didn’t startled, but he also didn’t turn away from the door. He was making sure the door closed and latched, without making the obnoxious click that some of the doors tended to make (mostly Bart’s, and Bart had probably screwed with it at some point). “Did Conner know where—”

Dick cut her off with a motion, then guided her quietly away from the residential hallway.

Barbara raised an eyebrow, but she could take a hint. Once in the rec room, though, all bets were off. “Did Conner know where Robin is?” she asked. She crossed her arms. It was a long day for everyone, but Babs had an internship the interview for, in the early AM.

“I assume so,” Dick said, grinning. Formality was melting off him and he was almost off guard. Bats didn’t go off guard.

“Okay?” Babs raised her other eyebrow, to join its twin. It was weird to see a Bat who didn’t cover their eyes with the WayneTech lenses. It never stopped being weird, no matter how often Batgirl worked with the other Bats.

“It looks like they fell asleep during a movie night,” Dick shrugged. “I didn’t want to wake them. Oh! You can go home, by the way. Get some sleep, huh?”

“Well, first of all, if Robin’s asleep, who’s doing his part of the patrol?” Barbara frowned. She wasn’t “Babs” when she put on that expression. She was more “Mom” than anything else. “I’m not going to sleep, I’m going on patrol.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dick said. He moved in between her and the zeta tube even as she turned toward them. “Hey, B and I used to patrol the whole damn place, all on our lonesome. You don’t have to worry about anything but charming your way through that interview tomorrow. C’mon, we both know how important that is to you. The patrol is just portent, next to that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Are you leaving Robin here?”

“He’s in good hands.” Not that Dick had known Tim and Conner were close. Or had ever seen them have a whole conversation. Or had seen Tim look around at the Team and gravitated anywhere but “to the zeta tube.” Tim wasn’t good at the whole friends thing. “Conner wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Conner wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Barbara echoed, flatly.

“A bird,” Dick offered instead, grinning wide. “Not out bird.”

“Well. It’s your brother,” Barbara said.

Dick’s smile flickered a little. Equal parts surprise and fondness. Tim wasn’t an official brother, really. He had a dad and a stepmom that weren’t Bruce. But Tim was still family. And Tim was Dick’s little brother. There was a bit of sadness, too, of course (Jason), but that didn’t make Tim less “family.”

Babs walked around Dick, shoulders back and very Batgirl in her body language, and went over to the zeta tubes. “I’ll patrol for a half hour, then I’ll head home to catch some Z’s,” she said.

That was more compromise than Dick had expected, honestly. “I’ll hold you to that,” Dick said. He was already putting in a call to the Cave, though. Like a responsible older brother, he couldn’t just leave without making sure all concerned parties – Bruce, Mr. Drake – were aware of Tim’s whereabouts. Vaguely. His vagueabouts.

“Nightwing,” Bruce answered the call, his voice as flat and gargled-gravel as it almost always was, when the cowl went up.

“Robin is down for the count,” Dick responded, smiling at the Bat cowl in the video call like it _wasn’t_ one of the most fearsome images for the Gotham underworld. “By down, I mean asleep. I was thinking he could use the downtime.”

“Hm.” Bruce wasn’t impressed. But he nodded and ended the call.

The next message was sent out by text to Mr. Drake’s phone. Not that Mr. Drake seemed to get any messages, calls, or texts until, like, days after they were sent to him.

[tim’s at a friend’s house for the night, but his phone died -grayson] he wrote and sent off.

One, let Tim sleep? Check. Two, give Tim opportunity for bonding and making in actual friend on the Team? Check.  Three, get Tim off the hook for patrol? Check. Four, check in with father figures on Tim’s behalf? Check. That wrapped up older brother duties for the night.

As Bart would say: Crash.

Dick headed for the zeta tube, himself, feeling a sense of pride and accomplishment, even though he’d be pulling an all-nighter for patrol, and then checking in with Blüdhaven for some a patrol. That didn’t leave much time between patrols and the time he was supposed to show up at Blüdhaven PD, but it was worth a night without rest if it meant Tim finally got a night of rest out of it. Tim drove himself far too hard, always trying to prove himself to everyone around him – his dad, Bruce, Dick, the Team – and it was driving Dick batty (pun probably intended) to watch the self-destruction that resulted from trying too hard, too long.

At least Dick had had Wally, all those years of being Robin and neglecting his Dick Grayson social circles in favour of cultivating his Robin side.

Maybe Conner could be Tim’s “Wally.”

**Author's Note:**

> This ends where it does mostly because I had an initial intent to keep writing, but then thought "oh, but I'm so bad at finishing things." I'm going to leave this as a stand-alone, and start a new mini project of "what happens next." That way, even if I don't finish what happens next, this is still relatively complete.


End file.
